False Gods Read Online Free PDF Page A

of its treasures in a museum to be devoted to its memory and to be paid for with Yankee dollars.
    This, of course, had to be the justification of everything he had done since Appomattox. His only happy times were the occasional weekends he spent at Castledale, roaming the rooms and corridors and riding over the grounds. Kitty never accompanied him, claiming with undeniable truth that he would rather be alone with his "true love," but in the first years of the restoration he had sometimes taken Osgood. The poor boy, however, was not only plain and stout; he was hopelessly dull. He had at an early age given up trying to curry favor with the stern father of whom he stood in helpless awe; he seemed to divine that it was not within his limited range to gain paternal affection or even approval. Yet Roger sometimes reluctantly suspected that his son would have given anything to be loved a little. Kitty was a demonstrative but easily distracted mother, and the smallest amount of warmth from a taciturn and preoccupied male parent might have made all the difference to the lad. But every time Roger resolved to pay him a little more attention, the boy would irritate him with some odious Yankee expression or demonstration of his ignorance of Southern history and tradition, and at last he resolved to take him south no longer, justifying the decision with the reminder that, after all, he intended to convert Castledale to a museum and sanctuary where Osgood would never have to live.
    Ned Carstairs did not approve at all of what he dared to call his brother's demeaning of his nephew, and he stepped out of his usually subservient role to argue roundly that Osgood was the rightful heir to Castledale and should be trained to be a good proprietor. But Roger was not accustomed to taking advice, and least of all from Ned, and he simply shrugged in answer. And so it was that Osgood played little part in his father's life until the night when, aged twenty-four, a bank clerk still living at home, he penetrated the usually forbidden-to-all area of the paternal study to announce that he was engaged to be married. Roger, surprised for once, looked up at the round serious eyes in the round pale face of his only child and felt a pang of remorse that he should not have the least idea of who the young lady might be. In his confusion he took refuge in sarcasm.
    "I trust, anyway, not to a Miss Gould or a Miss Fisk."
    "Oh, no, Father. To someone you will really approve of."
    "Heavens! Do you mean a Virginia girl? I didn't know you knew any."
    "Well, no, but perhaps the next best thing. She's the daughter of one of your partners."
    Roger was on his feet before he was even aware he had moved. "Good God, not to one of Gleason's girls!"
    Osgood looked bewildered by such violence. "Oh, no, sir, I don't even know them. It's Felicia Pratt."
    Roger stared. He seemed to recollect a large placid goose of a maiden. "Charles Pratt's daughter?"
    "Of course. Isn't that all right?"
    "What does
he
say?"
    "I don't know. I haven't spoken to him yet. I wanted to get your approval first."
    Roger rubbed his brow, wondering how much more there was that he didn't know about this young man he had found so dull. He turned away now from Osgood's anxious expression. He could hardly face the idea of the vexation that a belated regret for his paternal indifference might cost him. It was simply too late, much too late, to establish any real relationship. "Well, if Charles doesn't mind, why should I? You must bring Felicia to the house so that your mother and I may meet her."
    "Oh, Mummie knows her and likes her ever so much!"
    "Then there you are." Roger contrived a smile. "She must be all right."
4
    Kitty Carstairs on a dark snowy evening in the winter of 1882 was seated before the dressing table in her pink-and-yellow Louis XV boudoir on Murray Hill, dressed already, as she liked to put it,
en grand gala du soir
and attaching to her lobes the ruby earrings that went with her scarlet